The present disclosure relates to image forming apparatuses, image forming methods, and image forming programs, and more particularly to an image forming apparatus capable of compositing a plurality of images, and an image forming method and program performed by the apparatus.
Conventionally, there have been image forming apparatuses, such as multifunctional peripherals (MFPs) and printers, capable of printing text and images.
Some of the image forming apparatuses are able to composite a plurality of images.
FIG. 6 shows, as a typical example of image composition, the case where image data 300a of a form such as a sales slip and image data 300b of a document with actual numerical values written thereon are composited to generate image data 310 during the use of a copying function of an image forming apparatus.
For compositing images while using the copying function as described above, an image of the form is scanned first and an image of the document is scanned next, and then the two images are superposed on one another for printing them as a single image.
Typical image composition processing will be described with reference to FIG. 7.
First, image data 300a of a form is acquired from a scanner (step S200). This form image data 300a is subjected to color conversion by an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) (step S201). The color-converted image data 300a is compressed by another ASIC, and then stored in a RAM in a storage unit (step S202). Next, it is determined whether all pieces of image data have been acquired. Here, it is necessary to scan a document to be composited, so the process returns to step S200 (“No” in step S203). The document image data 300b is then acquired (step S200). This document image data is also subjected to color conversion by the ASIC (step S201). The image data 300b of the document image that has undergone the color conversion is also compressed (step S202). Next, it is determined whether all pieces of image data have been acquired. Here, the image data of the form and that of the document have both been acquired, so the process proceeds to step S204 (“Yes” in step S203). Next, the form image data 300a and the document image data 300b, which are to be composited, are expanded (step S204). The resultant pieces of image data are composited by the ASIC on a per-image-data basis, whereby composited image data 310 is generated (step S205). Next, the composited image data 310 is compressed (step S206). Thereafter, the compressed image data 310 is expanded on a band-by-band basis (step S207), the “band” being a unit of data that an image forming unit can process at a time to form an image thereof. Next, on the basis of the expanded band data, an image is formed on a sheet of recording paper by the image forming unit (step S208). It is then determined whether images have been formed for all bands (step S209). If so (“Yes” in step S209), the process is terminated; otherwise (“No” in step S209), the process returns to step S207.
Further, an example of such an image forming apparatus capable of compositing images has been disclosed conventionally.